MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! MURDER BY MUSIC starring Brett Halsey and Marilu Tolo (1969)What made a musicologist, a college student and a low life Romanian tough guy jump outta their apartment windows twennysome feet to the pavement below screaming in abject terror? From the start of this low-grade import we could tell that it was some kinda music, but what kinda music and why did it affect 'em this way? I know what you're thinking, but this time it just wasn't the Michael Stanley Band that drove these souls to an untimely and splattering death! But hey, I can understand your confusion!
Sea captain Milford (played by Amerigan ex-pat Brett Halsey) is the brother of one of the victims, a lass who crashed through her third story window screaming all the way as those macabre sounds played on. When he returns to London after a long voyage only to find this all out he's understandibly madder'n a Hindu at a cookout over her death, and along with sis's sexy roomie Cap's bound and determined to get to the bottom of things his own way (as usual the doofus police have already closed the case because hey, she was a ditzy gal!). Thus goes the moom, which takes him on a trail that leads through what I guess is supposed to be the hippie underground (as seen through the eyes of the establishment, natch!) and up against the previously mentioned rough and tumble Romanian guy named Boris. Now Boris is a character who really figures into the plot because he had seen sis the night before, and not only that but he comes off as an unpleasant sorta person himself and that ain't only because he's speaking with a thick accent and looks typically Mediterranean greasy which I guess didn't go over well over in Blighty, at least until the Islamic World started pouring in en masse and the locals had no choice!
Along the way Milford comes up against a whole buncha creepy bong-smoking hippies including this skinny gal who seems a little too flipped out even for the Manson Family, not to mention the dead musicologist's nephew, and of course the local "straight" clientele who seem to be even more thuggish than the hippoids! 'n for once you don't mind that the entire look of this film is custom-made for late-seventies Sunday PM UHF tee-vee or that the voices and lips don't match at all (this being an Eyetalian/Spanish production taking place in England...howdja like them apples?) because this sure comes off smoother'n all of the current tee-vee dramas that I've had the misfortune to sit through as of late!
Speaking of soundtracks, you know how I've been mentioning how various moom pitchers and tee-vee shows from overseas have this bad habit of switching from the English to native tongue when you least expect it, the results sometimes resulting in a kultur klash that catches you off guard? Well this one does as well, only thankfully it happens right at the end of the flick after everything is pretty much rapped up and we know who did it and did it good. Of course I would have loved to have known what cool and introspective thing was being uttered in that usual show-capping serious way that always made it easier for me to go beddy-bye a whole lot easier, but since I never took dagoese in school I can't! Which means I'm probably gonna be up all night worried sick just wondrin' what that cop said after the case was closed and closed GOOD 'n boy am I mad!
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